


Never Strong Enough, Never Fast Enough

by lethallyfreezingnewspaper



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky - Freeform, Bucky n Steve are in a relationship if ya read into it a bit i guess, Gen, Happy Ending, Headcanon, Hydra, I gave Bucky a bionic eye bc why not, Marvel - Freeform, Non-con Drug Use, Sleep, Swearing, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 15:10:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17583206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethallyfreezingnewspaper/pseuds/lethallyfreezingnewspaper
Summary: The Winter Soldier was never enough for HYDRA; never strong enough, never fast enough. Even when, twenty years after they took his arm, they removed his eye and implanted a bionic one, gave him screens and holograms and heat-sensors and everything else so he could always be watching five things at once, it wasn’t good enough. He- the Asset- could always be better. Always be a little less human, a little more machine. He could always have some sort of weakness removed.And, in the summer of 1973, the handlers decided they were going to remove the weakness of sleep.OR: I read something about lucid dreaming and it seemed like something HYDRA would want Bucky to have. Also I gave Bucky a bionic eye bc why not. It's really just a long headcanon.





	Never Strong Enough, Never Fast Enough

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic so... be nice. Also, enjoy! :)

The Winter Soldier was never enough for HYDRA; never strong enough, never fast enough. Even when, twenty years after they took his arm, they removed his eye and implanted a bionic one, gave him screens and holograms and heat-sensors and whatever else so he could always be watching five things at once, it wasn’t good enough. He- the Asset- could always be better. Always be a little less human, a little more machine. He could always have some sort of weakness removed.

And, in the summer of 1973, the handlers decided they were going to remove the weakness of sleep. At first, they used drugs. Bucky didn’t know what they were putting in him, just that he had to swallow them, then stay awake for as long as possible. They got him down to 30 minutes/night, but that wasn’t good enough. The pills might work for short periods of time, but they stopped when his muscles began to waste away. Strength was more important than sleep. Brain surgery was considered, but quickly dismissed. One wrong slice, and the surgeons could undo years of training. Nobody wanted to deal with a non-compliant assassin super-soldier.

After that, they switch gears; if his body can’t be awake, HYDRA says, then at least his mind can be. Every night, they upload intel to The Winter Soldier’s eye via a port in the back of his head, pump him full of sleep drugs, and order him to give them a report on it in the morning. Every morning, Bucky wakes up confused, and without the required knowledge. Every day, HYDRA thinks up some new punishment for his incompetency.

But one night, while they strap him down, not caring as the constraints grate against fresh burn marks, some of the intel they’ve uploaded onto his eye catches Bucky’s attention. Something about a Steve Rogers? Why does that sound familiar? There’s a flicker of blond hair, of a big smile and broad shoulders, but they’re pushing him down onto the mat now. The Winter Soldier goes into his assigned sleeping position automatically, eyes closed, head down, body curled in to preserve warmth, but his mind can’t stop turning over the name. He starts flicking through the pages on the small screen in the bottom-left corner of his eye, delving deeper into the information.

Suddenly, Bucky realizes something. His body is still, asleep, breathing evenly. But his mind is awake. As soon as this realization hits him, he can feel his mind start to slip and slide towards sleep. But any animal, any human, that has been tortured for years on end will do anything to stop that pain. So, Bucky clings to that edge of consciousness with all his might, and flicks to the next page of the manual, pulling up a document on the other side of his eye with a quick thought, and gets to work.

The next morning, they haul him upright, and ask, wearily, for the report. Bucky says nothing. They wait. A computer in the corner dings, and all the technicians jump. One of them goes over to check it; there’s a new message, containing all the major points of the intel they gave The Winter Soldier. The technician looks up and smiles. The Winter Soldier doesn’t.  
That day, Bucky doesn’t get any punishment. He spends the entire time searching his patchy memories, trying to cross-reference them with the intel he looked through last night. He gets nothing. Just blond, smile, and the shoulders. Why does he know this man?

The next day, the technicians begin working again, and that man quickly slips to the back of Bucky’s mind, almost completely forgotten. They work on weaning Bucky off the sleep drugs. Forcing him to fall asleep in any position. Giving him more intel, more, more, more, until he’s scanning through the pages, barely having enough to finish before they flip on the harsh lights and shove him upright. Then begins the physical. How to force himself awake. How to always be listening for enemies. They train Bucky down into the ground, so that he’s constantly alert, constantly awake, even when he’s sleeping. And once the workers deem the Winter Soldier mildly acceptable, he is put back to work.

All is fine and dandy (relatively speaking, which for the Winter Soldier means full of blood and death), until suddenly it’s not, 40 years later. Because, in the middle of a mission, he’s there. The man. Blond hair and wide shoulders. Not smiling; no, he’s frowning, grunting, as the Winter Soldier tries to beat the shit out of him. ‘Bucky?’ He asks- Steve Rogers asks- and the Winter Soldier can’t quite respond. Something’s there, dancing on the edge of his memories, just out of reach. ‘NO HESITATION, NO WEAKNESS’, The Soldier’s mind roars, and even though there is a Bucky, somewhere, the Asset replies ‘Who the hell is Bucky?’. And while most of The Winter Soldier enjoys watching this Steve Rogers guy crumple, watching his eyebrows furrow, knowing that the Soldier has won, another part of him replies _I am Bucky._

And that part of him grows, and grows, until he’s disobeying orders and saving a target, dragging this Steve Rogers out of a river, staying with him on the dirty riverbank. He wants to stay with this man, doesn’t want to go back to HYDRA, with the Chair and the never-ending Technicians. So that’s what he does. Bucky- because he’s not The Winter Soldier, he’s not the Asset, he’s Bucky- stays with Steve.

Moving into Avengers tower is awkward at first. It takes some adjusting; the beds are too soft, and regular sleep patterns are never something Bucky’s had time for. Nobody knows about his constant mental state of awake-ness, and it leads to some interesting conversations; over countless wipes, and several decades, Bucky’s forgotten that it’s not normal to be able to watch movies, or read, or listen to music, or answer emails, while you sleep. It just… never comes up.

‘Dude, you finished the Lord of the Rings series already?’ Clint exclaims one day. ‘I recommended it to you, like, three days ago!’

Bucky shrugs. ‘I guess I read fast.’

Time goes on, and due to his nights of pop-culture catch-up, Bucky starts understanding, and even occasionally laughing at Tony’s snarky references and nicknames. Steve is miles behind him in understanding the modern-day; but nobody’s actually bothered to ask Bucky how did you suddenly wake up understanding Stranger Things references, so Bucky goes on wondering why Bruce forced himself to stay up reading articles- why doesn’t he just go to bed and have JARVIS read them to you over the speakers? Or why Clint can so easily draw moustaches on Tony while he’s sleeping- why doesn’t Tony just hear him, and wake up? But Bucky was trained not to ask questions, and old habits die hard. He keeps his mouth shut.

One day, as they’re burning a HYDRA hideout, they find some old files, hidden in the back of a half-melted cabinet. Most of them are sent straight on to SHIELD, as per protocol, but some are stamped with ‘Project: ASSET’, so they’re kept behind. Bucky looks through them before anyone else; it’s his training regimen, spread out over months, years, decades. **_Asset still shivers when temperatures get below 10 degrees F, further training required- Asset achieved complete resistance to attempted information extraction training via the removal of fingernails- Asset has begun advanced sleep training- Asset has completed Stage Two of the ‘Blending In’ Training Programme, can now successfully infiltrate government offices without detection._** He lets the others look through them when he’s finished; Bucky isn’t embarrassed by the files, and they give the team some insight in how to restrain him if an enemy finds out, and uses, his trigger words. Bucky is still a danger to them all.

They’re flipping through the files, when Tony looks up and asks ‘Sleep training? Why would HYDRA train you how to sleep?’.

Bucky thinks, straining past countless wipes, trying to remember the drugs and the intel. It’s confusing- to Bucky, he’s always slept like that, in this state of non-sleep- so Bucky just comes up with the best answer he can. ‘Oh, you know. I guess they wanted me to be faster at sorting through intel while on missions and stuff, save time. Now I just use it to write mission reports, or watch movies, or whatever.’ Everybody looks up.

‘What do you mean, watch movies?’ Natasha asks, interested. Bucky’s brow furrows- can’t everyone do this?

‘Well, with my bionic eye, I just choose a movie to watch and it plays. You guys can’t do that, obviously but you must listen to podcasts or something, otherwise you’d be bored out of your mind.’ He’s pleased with that semi-pun, (out of your mind, while your mind is awake… ha!) but nobody else seems to get it.

‘Wait’. Bruce interjects, ‘So… when you’re asleep… you’re awake?’.

Bucky is even more confused now. ‘Yeah, kind of. My body sleeps, and my mind stays awake, doing whatever I want. Is that not normal?’

Clint shakes his head faintly. ‘No, Bucky, the rest of us spend our sleeping time actually sleeping. Not watching re-runs of Friends.’ Bucky frowns; he just finished that series a couple of weeks ago, and found it totally over-rated.

‘Wait-’ Steve exclaims ‘Is that how you read so quickly? And why I keep on getting emails from you at 2 am?’ Bucky nods.

‘I guess… with the Chair, and everything, it never occurred to me that being constantly awake isn’t normal.’

After that weird revelation, Bucky is suddenly in charge of writing all mission reports and doing the paperwork, which is something Clint is _very_ excited about.

Bruce insists on doing some tests and is fascinated by the results. ‘It’s almost like you’re not even asleep! You just… continue thinking, processing information, while your body lies still. You have a much higher level of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors than most people when you sleep- that’s probably a major contributing factor… ’ Bucky doesn’t really listen; he doesn’t like being the centre of attention, and he’s glad when Bruce stops trying to put electrodes on his head in the middle of his afternoon naps.

Nobody is quite sure what to do when Bucky falls asleep on the couch, a couple of weeks later - Bucky can hear them tiptoeing around him, and Clint mutters ‘Do you think he can really hear me?’ to Natasha. A moment later, Clint’s computer dings.

‘Yes, asshat’ reads the email from bbarnes@gmail.com. ‘Don’t you dare think about drawing a moustache on me, or I won’t give you cookies the next time I bake some.’

Over time, it becomes another accepted part of life at the Avengers Tower. Send Bucky an email, he’ll get back to you in under twenty minutes, no matter the time of day (or night). Give him a book recommendation, he’ll tell you his opinions on it in the morning. Fury is delighted; he no longer has to nag the team to complete their paperwork. It’s always in his inbox, waiting, the morning after the mission is over.

Soon, Bucky is more up-to-date on pop culture than Tony and Natasha. He has to start being wary of spoilers, of not bursting into the kitchen in the morning going ‘HOLY SHIT I CAN’T BELIEVE (insert side character from current popular television show) DIED/GOT PREGNANT/HOOKED UP WITH (insert secondary side character)’. Bucky’s sleep is no longer an object of fascination, and that’s something he’s very happy about.

That changes, on one cold January evening. It’s movie night, and everybody is cuddled up together, pizza boxes strewn all over the place. Bucky, once skittish and barely touchable, has come to love these moments, come to love being surrounded by warmth and laughter and pure, unabashed happiness. As the movie wears on- one Bucky’s already seen, back in October or so- Bucky feels his eyelids growing heavy, and he rests his head on Natasha’s stomach, quietly falling asleep. He jerks awake a couple hours later, gasping, panicking, shoving the sleepy, grumbling Avengers off of him.

‘Bucky?’ Steve calls as Bucky stumbles over to the floor-to-ceiling window. ‘Hey, Buck? You okay?’

‘I- I. I fell asleep. Actual sleep.’ Bucky mutters, wildly combing his human fingers through his hair as he stares out onto a sleeping- _sleeping, fuck sleeping_ – city. ‘I haven’t done that in- god, years. Decades. I can barely remember.’

Everyone is up now, murmuring to each other, rubbing sleep out of their eyes, casting sideways glances at Bucky when they think he’s not looking. Bucky’s human hand, splayed against the glass, is trembling. ‘I’d forgotten what it felt like. To sleep.’ Steve waves the others off as Bucky begins to tear up, voice cracking midway through the sentence. ‘I’m so fucked up I couldn’t remember what sleep felt like. I was scared, Steve. Of sleep. That’s like- I don’t know- being scared of fucking breathing or something.’ Steve doesn’t know if this is progress or not; it's probably good if Bucky feels safe enough to actually sleep around them, but Steve doesn’t quite know how to deal with existential assassins.

It turns out that it is progress. All Bucky’s tendencies, how he always has a minimum of three exit plans at any given time, or how he’s never without a weapon (there’s a knife taped to the back of a shampoo bottle in his shower), or how he keeps a parachute on the roof just in case he needs to escape, begin to wear away. They were slowly receding, but it’s like someone’s pressed the fast forward button on Bucky’s return to human normalcy.

One week, he forgets to check under the table for a bomb before he sits down. A couple of months later, Bucky saunters into the kitchen, before freezing, realizing that the closest knife is a whole six feet away from him, that he had no gun, no razor, no anything on his body. Of course, he immediately lunges for the knife and then refuses to go anywhere without a machine gun for the next week or so, but it's progress. One step forward, two steps back, right?

Sleeping gets a lot easier, too. Normal sleeping. Un-normal sleeping happens as well, because Fury now has a new level of expectations for the Avenger’s paperwork. But every night, Bucky get to lie down and thinks; sleep, or no sleep.  
Most times, he chooses to sleep.


End file.
